Midstate’s Miss America in good company despite awkward DeflateGate answer

The beauty queen’s last-minute hiccup came in the form of a rambling answer about a professional football scandal involving underinflated balls.

And it happened in front of a live national television audience in the home stretch of the Miss America pageant.

In the end Sunday night, it wasn’t enough to derail Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell’s bid to become the state’s first Miss America in 63 years.

Cantrell, 21 years old and the reigning Miss Georgia, had earlier nailed the opera she sang in the talent competition.

Then came the onstage-interview portion of the show. Contestants had 20 seconds to answer. Country musician Brett Eldredge, a pageant judge, asked Cantrell the football question, which she asked him to repeat.

“New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was suspended for his part in the so-called Deflategate scandal,” Eldredge said before slightly misspeaking himself, “then instated (sic) by the courts. Legalities aside, did Tom Brady cheat?”

Cantrell, appearing to think aloud for a moment as she began her answer, said, “Did he cheat? Um, that’s a really good question. I’m not sure. I think I’d have to be there to see the ball and, uh, feel it and make sure it was deflated or not deflated. But, um, if there was question there then, yes, I think he cheated. If there was any question to be had, I think that he definitely cheated and there (sic) that he should have been suspended for that. That’s not fair.”

After winning the crown, she told an on-camera interviewer, “I thought I blew my onstage question. I didn’t know what he asked me. But I’m so thankful for this.”

The Washington Post on its website Monday declared, “Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell wins, even after bizarre Deflategate question.”

The sports website Deadspin, beneath the headline “Miss America Takes Crown Thanks To Declaring That Tom Brady ‘Definitely Cheated,’” noted that “if we’ve ever heard such an empty yet definitive answer, this is it.”

As it turns out, Cantrell and her awkward answer were in good company.

Neva Jane Langley, a former Miss Macon and the only other Miss Georgia to become Miss America, didn’t exactly wow the Atlantic City crowd with her Q&A response at the pageant in September 1952.

The Florida-born Langley, then 19 and a Wesleyan College student, years later told The Telegraph about a not-so-well-received answer of her own. It drew boos from the audience.

“The last five of us were standing there and they asked three questions,” she recalled.

One of the questions was, “Who do you think is the most important man in the world today?”

Some of the contestants mentioned their fathers. Langley, who died in 2012, went with the president.

“And Truman was very unpopular at the time,” she said. “And so when I said President Truman, this low booooooooo came out, and I thought, ‘Oh, that did it for me.’ And then they said, ‘Where would you like to spend your honeymoon?’ And I quickly recovered by saying Atlantic City.”

Her son, Bill Fickling III, watched Sunday’s pageant with interest. He said his mother, in the years after she won, rarely missed it.

Fickling was worried that Cantrell’s Deflategate answer might hurt her chances.

“I’m certainly glad that it didn’t,” he said.

“It was kind of an unfair question. Of all the things important going on in the world right now -- not that sports aren’t important -- but this is just a blip on the screen.”

Asked what his mother might think about Cantrell, following in her footsteps as a Miss America from Middle Georgia, Fickling said his mom always rooted for Miss Georgia to win.

“She just would have been overjoyed that Betty Cantrell won,” Fickling said.

He said his mother had a stage presence in the most everyday of situations.

“So I was looking for it in Betty and some of the other candidates,” Fickling said. “And I think Betty does have that kind of light-up-the-room personality. ... It certainly came across in her talent.”

To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397 or follow him on Twitter@joekovacjr.

This story was originally published September 14, 2015 at 10:29 PM with the headline "Midstate’s Miss America in good company despite awkward DeflateGate answer ."